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6 Tammuz 5765 - July 13, 2005 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family

MEMOIRS
Bas Mitzva Story

by Rochel Leah Perlman

Birthdays were a special delight to us four children. My parents would tell us what they could remember of their childhood in Russia. There is one story my mother told us that all of us remember to this very day. I was the oldest child in our family and on my twelfth birthday, we all heard the following true story:

When I was twelve years old, I was already working in a sewing shop which produced men's and boys' suits. As was often the case, Russia was at war, this time with Japan. We were told by our supervisor that the uniforms we were sewing were needed by our valient Russian soldiers. "No one will be allowed to take any days off. I have been instructed to warn you that whoever fails to come to work will face the firing squad."

I didn't tell this to my parents. On the first Shabbos after the announcement, I dressed as if I were going to shul, and off I went to the factory.

We four children gasped in shock. Our eyes were fixed on our mother's face. This was a story I had never heard before!

When I got to the factory, I sat down at my usual seat, faced my sewing machine, but kept my hands in my lap. I just sat there. My heart was full of prayers: I asked Hashem to save me.

The lady supervisor walked over to me, stood behind me for a moment, but didn't say a word. The women all around me were busily footing the treadle on their machines and producing uniforms, as usual. I just sat there.

We all gasped, waiting for my mother to continue.

The supervisor never reported me, nor did any of my gentile fellow workers.

*

My mother finished her story at this point. It had been an outright miracle, repeated week after week until the end of that war.

I was fully aware of it, but still wondered how, exactly, it had happened. I received my answer nine years later. I was twenty-one, and preparing for my wedding. My mother had always been sewing all of our clothes, and this occasion was certainly no exception. My mother was blessed with magic hands, but also with a very fine eye for design. She was able to go into a fine lady's shop, look at the dresses on display, and then come home and make a perfect replica of those very expensive outfits, having bought fine material on her way.

My mother didn't need a pattern to copy the dresses, not even the wedding dress which she made for me. Before my wedding, she was busy sewing my clothing as well as the gowns for herself, her mother and my sisters. She even sewed a beautiful gown for the flower girl who would go before me and strew petals along the red carpet, as was the custom in those days.

We were accustomed to seeing our mother busy at the machine, but during this hectic time, her hands just flew, and gorgeous, perfectly fitted and finished garments slipped out from her machine.

It was at this time that it suddenly struck me. Up until now, I had never understood why the supervisor had never reported my mother for her seventh day strikes. But seeing her speed and accuracy under pressure, I had the answer to my question. The supervisor knew that my mother could make up in a day or two what she had failed to produce on Shabbos.

And probably still be ahead of her fellow workers, I was willing to bet.

 

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